The Suit

I’m jogging in Osaka park, in the shadow of the castle, when a man on a park bench asks me for a light. I don’t have one, of course – but he catches my eye and motions to the seat beside him. He seem harmless and my run is over, so I sit.

He’s in his mid-40s, obviously a businessman, and a successful one at that. His suit is tailored to perfection and has that subtle, expensive sheen. He must have noticed my appraisal because he starts speaking as though we were old friends.

"It was almost four years ago," he says. "They came into our office and just made an announcement. We were all so ashamed that we couldn’t even raise our heads and look each other in the eye." He pauses. "They said it wasn’t our fault… the recession… a bad year in exports…. But still…"

He’s somehow lit a cigarette. I’ve been staring at the castle rather than looking at his face. I don’t have to be a Catholic to recognize an open-air confessional.

"I lost my savings, then the house. After that I sent my wife home to her parents with the kids. We all said it was temporary. I went to see them a few times but it was too painful and embarrassing all around. Now I just don’t bother anymore and everyone is relieved. It was the same thing with my friends. It made it worse that I still looked like them – I suppose it was a reminder that it could happen to them as well. One day I walked out my door with nothing more than a briefcase and my best suit – as though I was just going off to work. I never went back."

He’s rubbing a spot on the inside lining of his suit, and I can see that the material has started to fray. "I learned to sew," he murmurs almost as an afterthought. The lining had developed a tear. He flips it up just long enough for me to see the stitches, tiny and impossibly straight. "I take it off at night so that I don’t wrinkle it in my sleep." He laughs low and without humor. "One night I almost froze to death. It was my first January, and it got so cold. Every third month I save up to have it dry-cleaned, and I have to hide for a night and a day. In between I hang it over a steaming subway grate."

He used English when he first spoke to me, but since then he’s switched to Japanese. Sometimes I understand his words, sometimes not, but always from his expression, I know exactly what he means.

"Occasionally I buy a cheap ticket and ride back and forth on the train. I can do this because I look just like a businessman. But it has to be during rush hour, when it’s the most crowded and uncomfortable. I always stand. Sometimes I catch a young lady’s eye." He smiles. "Life isn’t so bad.

When he walks among the people at the station, nobody notices him. That minor gesture – or lack thereof – makes him feel a part of things. And he reacts like any good citizen when he sees a dirty man in wrinkled clothes sleeping on the ground.
"I will never be like them".

He’s smoked his cigarette to the nub. It’s an expensive habit – most homeless look for discarded, half-finished fags but he won’t pick them off the street – the telltale dents might give him away

"I still drink too much, he says sadly. "A bad habit I brought with me... When I drink I remember the bars we used to go to after work – the camaraderie, the mama-sans, the swirling smoke, and lots of noise and warmth. It was always warm in there. I never noticed it at the time, but looking back…"

He can’t get another job, despite his expensive clothes. He’s not trained for anything else. Stores won’t take him because they want young women, and he’s overqualified. In some ways the suit is as much a deterrent as if he wore old rags.

And he has expenses. A haircut once a week. The barber doesn’t know his situation, even after all these years. He never asks for a discount, and always pays in cash.

The cigarettes are a prop, of course. I am a prop too – a one-time actor on his stage, there only for a single scene. The play: that he is a successful businessman taking a lunchtime stroll in the sun. Only he never gets up to go back to work.

But the suit – that’s more than just a prop. It’s his dignity – his face.

He’s rubbing the same spot over and over with his thumb. It’s fraying more each time.

"One day," he says, still rubbing, "It will be destroyed. And then everything will be over."

Excerpted from Japanland © 2005 Rodale Press. To purchase, please visit japanlandonline.com